October 1st of 2011 is a day I will never forget. When my mother first informed me she had bought My Chemical Romance tickets in early July, I was bubbling with excitement. But as the days went on I got more and more anxious on whom I would bring. No one I knew had even heard of My Chem. I figured I would bring my best friend who said she liked the music even though she didn’t know any of the songs/albums/band mates’ names. I was perfectly calm the week of my concert; I ended up meeting a very nice girl at soccer practice who was a HUGE fan of My Chemical Romance.
The way we meant was rather funny; we do soccer together in high school. The first day she wore a spider shirt with the American flag behind it. I figured she was just a fan of their new stuff or just liked the shirt and she bought it. I wore my spider necklace everyday and hoped that she would see it and come talk to me. Turns out that she in fact had seen my necklace but was afraid that I bought the necklace because it looked cool. It took about 2 weeks of our other soccer team (outside of high school) for us to realize how big of fans we each were. My phone was playing a song and I had decided to put I’m Not Okay (I Promise) on it as my ringtone. As soon as it started to play she ran over and screamed ‘IS THAT MCR?!’ I told her yeah, and that I was a huge fan. That is where our friendship had started; in only a months’ time we are practically sisters. We like all the same music and have seen every interview that My Chem has done. We quote LOTMS constantly; and always get in trouble for talking about music during practice.
I was grateful that fate had brought us together, I had finally found the one person I was looking for, the one person who would keep me as far away as possible from depression. Just 4 days before the concert I had asked her to go with me and she absolutely lost it asking me if I was joking or if I were serious. I gladly informed her this wasn’t a joke and she said yes a thousand times.
When I showed up at her house (In a black tank top, jeans, and a homemade Party Poison mask on my head) she took one look at me and shook her head in disappointment. She wore her Party Poison mask on her head which she had put blood splatter on, a homemade shirt that said ‘Art is the Weapon! My Chemical Romance’, gray and green skinny jeans with an American flag print bandana tied to her thy, and militaristic boots. Even though she was younger than me, I looked up to her. She has been a fan since 2006 and had every CD (except Bullets because we both cannot find it), she was decked out in MCR clothes, and I stood before her looking like some kind of hipster with a ton of eyeliner on. She took me by my arm and ran me inside, threw an MCR shirt at me and searched through her drawers for bandana’s to tie around my leg.
I looked in the mirror and looked much more like a true MCR fan. We raced back outside, took a few pictures and were on our way. The entire car ride she was frantically asking me questions about meeting the guys or if we got lost. I calmly sat there and tried to stop her fears and worries. I hadn’t been nervous since I was informed of the tickets. But as soon as I jumped out of the car the nerves went crazy. I was freaking out, what if we can’t find our seats? What if they find something metal on me and have to ask me a bunch of questions? What if we get separated? I tried to calm myself down, but my friend was worse than me.
We ran into the line on the left side on the Honda Center; only to end up in a sea of Blink-182 fans. I personally only knew 2 songs and my friend was a huge fan but was there for MCR. We got more and more nervous as we searched for any Killjoys, we couldn’t find a single person. Relief came washing over us as we saw 2 Killjoys sporting Revenge shirts next to us in the other line. We got up to security and passed through with no complications. Got our tickets verified and walked in. A nice lady snapped us out of the trance we were in as we both gazed at the merch booth, flooding with Blink-182 and MCR fans; she welcomed us both to the Honda Civic tour and threw lanyards over our heads with little booklets attached. I felt honored to have my own lanyard.
We both made it our goal to tell every single person wearing MCR merch that we love them and their shirts/jackets as well. We got in line for merch and saw people everywhere lucky enough to have their own Danger Day jackets. All the killjoys were so nice, it’s like as soon as you find out someone is a Killjoy you no longer judge them, you are equals. I love that about MCR, they can make complete strangers feel like family in only 2 seconds of meeting them.
We both got out of line to go to the bathroom and the first person we saw was a girl with bright blue hair, my friend asked if she was a killjoy and to our excitement she said yes and we had a small conversation about how difficult it is to see all the Killjoys with all these Blink-182 fans in our way. Once we were done in the bathroom we hurried to our seats. Our seats were in the far, far left of the whole place and all the way up in the 400’s. Our view was the side of the stage which kind of rocked because we were the first to see Gerard’s hair as he walked past the stairs to the stage. When we arrived at our seats Mat and Kim were just finishing something. And Kim decided to shake her butt over the mosh pit, it was interesting and fun. Then they did a jam session basically and from what I heard I liked it, with Matt on the keyboards and Kim practically loosing it on the Drums, it both blended so well.
Me and my friend looked around to find any Killjoys and only saw like 2 or 3 people. The girl we had met earlier in the bathroom was over to the right of us and we tried to wave but she was busy talking to her friend. It felt like we were in a sea of Blink-182 fans, and seemed even worse when we were the only two of our whole section to be screaming back every word to the guys on stage when they were playing. At the time we didn’t give a shit if they hated MCR, we loved them dammit and if you don’t like it, go fuck yourself. When MCR had first come on one of the guys in front of me kept saying how they needed to ‘get these faggots off the stage’ he was wearing a Blink-182 shirt. I ended up ‘accidently’ kicking him in the head. Whoops (sarcasm).
Once set up ended, which lasted way too long for my liking, the Asian lady went up on the screen and started to talk in Japanese. Although we had no idea what she was saying, we still screamed in excitement. All the fears of being up high, the fears of being mocked for being a Killjoy, or for being only 14 and at a concert had left me in the instant. I watched as the guys took the stage in amazement. It didn’t feel like reality anymore, it felt like a dream, a dream that I had wanted to live my whole life.
Na Na Na blasted loudly and I screamed every word back to Gerard. I was hoping that I was annoying the shit out of the people around me, anything to piss off Blink-182 fans. Up next was I’m Not Okay (I Promise) more people around us had known the words and sang in their seat. That was understandable; I mean who hasn’t heard I’m Not Okay?! Although I couldn’t understand a single word that came out of Gerard’s mouth due to the place we were in, I screamed in response. I remember him screaming “WE ARE….MY. CHEMICAL.” and held the microphone out to the audience. An explosion of people screamed back “ROMANCE!” in unison. Planetary (Go) was up next and damn did everyone enjoy it. Down below there were giant balloons filled with confetti were sent out to the mosh pit and as soon as the balloon got close to Gerard he would pop it and get confetti all over the people in the pit; I could only imagine how amazing and life changing it must have been to be in the pit. Next was The Only Hope for Me is You which was amazing of course.
Gerard made short speech about how the kids and wives were with them and how happy they were to have them there. It made me smile knowing that the guys were with their families. Next up was Mama, a classic. I hadn’t listened to it in a while and I felt like I were hearing it for the first time again. Even thought the guys were in the Danger Days era, the song brought out the Black Parade uniforms within MCR. With every word that Gerard said into the microphone between songs the roar of the crowd would get progressively louder.
My friend kept asking what song was coming up and just from the drums when Gerard was talking I could tell that Helena (So Long and Goodnight) was coming up. I knew it from the moment the drums had started up after Mama. Gerard started with the whole “I said whoooooaahhh!” and the crowd repeated “Whoaaaaaahhhh!”. “I said whoaaAHHHH!!” and repeated back. I was singing it in unison with Gerard; I’d seen my fair share of live videos. “Ah-whoaa whooooooaaaaaaa!!” and repeated back. “Ah- whoaaaaa oh-whoaaa!”and repeated. She didn’t believe me until Gerard sang ‘Long ago’.
Then the whole place blew up as if the whole Honda Center knew every word to every verse.
Next was a blast from the past, Our Lady of Sorrows. I hate to say it but I barely knew any of the words while my friend was screaming every single word back to Gerard. Next was Teenagers. At first we thought it was The Kids From Yesterday because Gerard was talking about this song being about kids. As soon as the word Teenagers slipped past his lips and into the microphone screams filled the Honda Center. Next was Famous Last Words; the first My Chemical Romance song I had learned all the lyrics to sorely from listening to it over and over again out of the pure enjoyment of the song.
Next was S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W, to be honest I have hated that song since I’d heard it in January this year. 2 weeks before the concert I put it on my iPod thinking it would grow on me, but it hadn’t. That was my friend’s favorite song off the whole album and she lost it when the first note was struck. I felt so stupid for not knowing the words to the song, but after seeing it live, I gotta say I’ve grown a liking to it.
Up next was a classic, Welcome to the Black Parade. The crowd had collected themselves and calmed down, everyone singing lightly as Gerard did. As soon as the beat picked up people lost it again and we all started to dance once again. The band had left and we thought it was over when I looked to find Gerard back on stage.
The last song of the night was Cancer. There are no words to explain how beautiful it was to see Gerard on stage with the help of the Key Boardist and the drummer. When the first note was heard everyone already had their lighters and cell phones out. I looked to the mosh pit to find a sea of lighters, which made me smile. There were a lot of cell phones, but that was more mainstream. It did look amazing with lighters, I gotta say.
No longer were there people screaming and yelling ‘I love you’s to the stage. Everyone silently sang along while swaying with the music. Gerard’s voice was angelic; the whole atmosphere of the Honda Center had changed from a crazy dance party to a nice calm silence. It made me feel like I were family with every single Killjoy/Black Parader/or Revengee.
Before finishing Cancer with the final word ‘you’ Gerard backed from the microphone and urged the crowd to get loud and scream before finishing with a light ‘you’ and screaming ‘GOODNIGHT!’ into the microphone before disappearing.
The whole band was amazing, Frank was not as crazy as he was back during Revenge but he didn’t lack when it came to jumping all around the stage. Mikey kept his spot proudly strumming his bass, more confident than I’ve ever seen. Ray made up for when he had that cast on his foot, with every note he hit perfectly, you felt it in your blood. The drummer was amazing, I have nothing bad to say about him and the Key Boardist kept the sweet parts sweet and kept the party in the air when the guys played something off Danger Days.
After My Chem left me and my friend went to the merch booth and bought our stuff. We went outside to go home when I told her I wanted to check the busses. We turned the corner to find 3 other groups of 3 or 4 killjoys all talking. We put our crap down when a security came over and informed all of us that the best place to be was on the other side of the railing across where we were standing and it would be like 10 to 15 minutes before the band would come out. As we started to run he yelled that the only way around was to go around the Honda Center. So all 10 or so of us started to sprint. We all ran around the whole place and just as we got up to the bars to join around 30 other killjoys they told us we had just missed Frank walking by. We were all mad and disappointed but I was not going to let that get me down.
We talked with the Killjoys when someone told me that the Key Boardist was over like 20 feet talking to some other Killjoys. I wanted to get over there and talk with him but I was in a conversation with a fellow killjoy. I was nice and wrapped it up, but my friend was nervous and didn’t want to go. I tried convincing her but she wouldn’t budge, I grabbed my camera and was about to walk over there when the people who were talking with him came back and told me he had just left. I was disappointed but kept strong.
We ended up seeing Frankie three times (he was walking back a fourth from the van to back inside), Ray once and of course the Key Boardist. I also got to see Lyn-Z she was by the back of the bus laughing with someone. All of the Killjoys agreed the second time we saw Frank that we shouldn’t yell because it might wake up the babies and the guys won’t come out, so when they did, we were all respectful and lightly clapped and a few cheers to let the guys know we were there and loved them. Not nearly enough to be loud or at all fan girl-ish.
When Frank passed by he sort of smiled at us acknowledging our presents, which was lovely. When Ray passed by on his way to the bus we clapped and two people shouted his name, he waved as us and we all waved back in unison and he smiled. I caught a glimpse of it and just that one millisecond of seeing Ray Toro smile made my whole year. It made me all happy inside that one of my idols was happy to see me. Unfortunately there was no chance of seeing either of the Way brothers.
We all ended up waiting for a total of 3 hours, but damn was it worth it. We talked with one of the security guys, we asked questions about who he had met, and had a discussion about why we thought we were the best fans. We kept telling him how we are like I giant family and we are all here to support each other, but he obviously had heard that a million times. I don’t think anyone understands what it’s like unless you are one of us for example.
I meant so many nice people, and if you’re out there, I love your face <3
The only downfall was when Blink-182 finished all the fans came out and pushed us against the railing thinking that they were going to see Blink, when really they weren’t even coming through here. I quickly realized how much I hate Blink fans (no offense if you are one) but the ones I was surrounded by the whole concert including just walking in the halls, they were all assholes. We tried to tell them politely that Blink wasn’t coming through here but they ignored us and then a bunch of people started to smoke. I don’t have anything against smoking, if that’s what you like then have fun with it, but it’s a whole different story if you are pushing in closer and breathing the smoke right into the crowd of people.
At one point I was ready to just give in and leave but when I turned my head to look behind me there were at least 6 rows of people all trying to get a glimpse of no one. When Travis Barker passed by quickly all of the Blink fans lost it and made everything chaos. Everything that we Killjoys had planned about being nice and collective had been crushed by these crazy Blink fans. They even stood on planters which made the head of security so angry that he was a complete asshole to everyone there. It’s like he didn’t give a shit about us Killjoys who were trying to make everything easier, then yells at us because the Blink fans are fucking ruining everything.
He informed us that at midnight they have a right to kick us off the property otherwise we will be forced off the property by authorities. And 5 minutes before midnight he made us all go home, he could have just told us it’s time to leave but no, instead he fucking screamed and yelled at us like we were animals to get off his property. Blink fans slowly left and since us Killjoys were up front we couldn’t move fast enough with all the people in the way. The security was getting angry at the whole situation, all of us Killjoys were mumbling about how before the Blink fans had come everything was orderly and everyone was nice, but then it turned to hell.
Over-all it was an amazing concert, I got to see 3 of the band mates and Lyn-Z which is rare. If you have never been to a concert, I highly, HIGHLY recommend you get tickets; because who knows? You might get lucky and see one of the guys.
I remember the car ride back; thinking back to before the concert when I said it would be special. The thought made me smile, it defiantly was special. I will never forget everyone I meant in the process; and if it hadn’t been for My Chemical Romance, I never would have found the person that would save me from myself. So thanks MCR; your music brings people together weather it’s giving you our bullets, revenge filling our blood, proudly standing in black in search of the parade, and getting up and
dancing.
I wonder what the next album will be, another one to add to the list of amazing memories. From one Killjoy to another, keep running.
Xoxo,
D
